They played for the sake of play alone, and their only concern was the ultimate evolution of their game.

Friday, April 14, 2006

I once, years ago, told someone how easy it was, and has always been, for me to detach from people. How easily and frequently I can just walk away without another thought. I think the exact words I used were "the only reason I stop to look back is to light a cigarette from the bridge I just started burning, but then I turn around and keep on walking."

And in the years since then, I have thought about this on and off. And, even once, tried -- more as experiment at the time than anything else -- to take an exactly opposite approach. And when my desire to leave hit, I stayed, at least to a small degree. It was a matter of making myself do so, and making myself output what I felt was the minimum communication/involvement required so that I was "still there" instead of "long gone". And both good, at which I was surprised, and bad, at which I was not surprised, came of that experiment. But what mostly came from it, as an offshoot, was the realization that it even if you have left, is not very difficult to rebuild the bridges you have burned and to feel grateful that there is so much to come home (to the home within yourself) to.

What that time of 'forced' connection showed me was how to study the underlying values there in such situations. And I found, much later, that they often represented something that I may have mistakenly rejected in the past. And that, perhaps, I had been distracted by more glamorous dreams and not really realizing that, at a deep level, my heart and soul were being fed, and had been. Or, perhaps they hadn't been, but my refusing to leave allowed them time to develop the ability to feed on what was there.

I still am not sure.

But, what I feel is once again an affirmation of the fact that whereever I am is exactly where I belong. And that entire journeys can be designed to bring you back to a familiar person with an entirely new appreciation.

I think that it is important to strive, with humility, to be the first to recognize your own mistakes, misunderstandings, and self-involvement in relationships. It's important to be a warrior of the open heart and help the one you care about to own the strength of their love, in whatever form it may take.

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...

And sometimes it is only that your companion may not be clear about his or her own goals and cannot move forward in the direction you want at the time. I've seen you burn bridges for no reason other than impatient. Remember that others sometimes need time in which to assess the implications. Free from pressure he or she will act.

"I am the seasoned traveler
Of the Labyrinth.
The genius of alacrity,
Wizard of the impossible.
My brilliance is yet unmatched
In its originality.
My heart's filled with potent magic
That could cast a hundred spells.
I am put together
For mine own pleasure.

I am the Monkey."

Seems pretty apt.

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*************************************
"My friend, every sorceress is a pragmatist at heart; nobody sees essence who can't face limitation. If I wanted only to hold you

I could hold you prisoner." -- Circe's Power, Louise Gluck

"My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams -- like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves." -- Demian, Hermann Hesse

"The Muses are vindictive deities: they avenge themselves without mercy on those who weary of their charms." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

THE RULES: As a general rule, and most of you already know this, I prefer annonymous comments on this blog. Here is where I like to talk more "idea to idea" than person to person. I've got another journal wherein I get all personally chatty, but here I like the idea of ideas being separate from the contructs/biases/"personalities" behind them. Because those things color us all, don't they? Anyway, it's not a hard and fast rule, so feel free to comment however you like. Caro can never help giving herself away and, of course, Aspyre is always welcome to comment with identity because when Ladarna and Aspyre talk, it has always been idea to idea anyway. :)